NACO designs Beijing's second airport

NACO Netherlands Airport Consultants has won the contract to design Beijing’s second ‘mega’ airport – The Beijing New International Airport (BNIA).

NACO Netherlands Airport Consultants has won the contract to design Beijing’s second ‘mega’ airport – The Beijing New International Airport (BNIA).

The Dutch firm – a member of the DHV Group – won the global competition to design the new ‘mega airport’, which could have the capacity to eventually handle up to 130 million passengers each year and will have eight runways in total.

BNIA, scheduled to open in 2017, is being built to complement the current Beijing Capital International Airport, which is expected to reach its maximum capacity within the next few years.

Last year, Beijing Capital International Airport handled 73.9 million passengers.

The planned capacity for the second capital airport is at least 60mppa, but the first stage of the second airport will be built to handle at least 40mppa.

According to NACO, the master plan focuses on sustainability and the design incorporates all modes of public transport – including high speed trains, metro and inter-airport trains – all of which will be based in a Ground Transportation Centre in front of the new terminals.

The layout of the runways, taxiways and aprons has also been carefully designed to keep taxi distances as short as possible, and in turn reduce fuel burning and CO2 emissions.

Beijing Capital Airport’s Terminal 3 was also designed by NACO after it won the design competition back in 2003.

Rik Krabbendam, managing director of NACO, said: “NACO proves to be successful again. Since the new airport will predominantly handle domestic traffic, the challenge was to fit in 100 million passenger movements on the landside areas of the new airport.”